Rice's path to glory

For the record, here is Jim Rice's voting path to Cooperstown:

Year         Percentage of Vote Who Got In

1995         29.8	     Mike Schmidt

1996         35.3           None

1997         37.6           Phil Niekro                         

1998         42.9           Don Sutton

1999         29.4           Nolan Ryan, George Brett, Robin Yount

2000         51.5           Carlton Fisk, Tony Perez

2001         57.9           Dave Winfield, Kirby Puckett

2002         55.1           Ozzie Smith

2003         52.2           Eddie Murray, Gary Carter

2004         54.5           Paul Molitor, Dennis Eckersley

2005         59.5           Wade Boggs, Ryne Sandberg

2006         64.8           Bruce Sutter

2007         63.5           Cal Ripken, Jr., Tony Gwyn

2008         72.2           Goose Gossage

2009         76.4           Rickey Hendersom, Jim Rice

During the first 14 years of his candidacy, the BBWAA elected 21 players, and I'd say seven of them were certifiable, drop-dead, classic first-ballot Hall of Famers. I'm talking about Schmidt, Ryan, Brett, Smith, Boggs, Ripken and Gwynn. Yount, Winfield and Molitor are close to that category.

The rest are debatable.

I don't think Jim Rice could kick seriously about any of the debatables who beat him to Cooperstown. The one who frosts me a little is Tony Perez, whose rep was enhanced by the company he kept. I was an annual voter for Dave Concepcion, a teammate of his who, in my view, was the best all-around shortstop in baseball between WWII and Ozzie Smith (Yes, better than messrs. Reese, Rizzuto and Aparicio). But it was a fairly Quixotic quest. Not enough people shared my high regard for Concepcion.

So put me down as saying that Rice should have beaten Tony Perez to Cooperstown. By the way, Perez was one of four Rice teammates (Fisk, Boggs and The Eck being the other three) to get the happy call while he spent all those frustrating years hoping to get in.

What can we deduce from these figures? Take a look at the drop between 1998 (42.9) and 1999 (29.4). Is it not evident that there really are people who look to see if there are any drop-deads and then stop looking? Ryan, Brett and Yount were all first-ballot selections in 1999. Many people who voted for Rice in 1998 did not vote for him in 1999. I cannot fathom that type of reasoning, or if you can even call it that.

With that Holy Trinity safely ensconced in Cooperstown, the voters looked at the 2000 ballot with a more benevolent eye. They took care of Fisk, who had finished fourth behind the big guns the year before, and Perez, who had finished fifth. And they restored Jim Rice to their good graces, too, moving him from a 29.4 percent of the vote to a 51.5 share. In terms of actual votes, he had 146 in 1999 and 257 in 2000. He must have had a very good year, huh?

I mean what kind of convoluted reasoning could explain the three-year juxtaposition of the Jim Rice vote between 1998 and 2000?

Year        Votes          Percentage

1998        203             42.9

1999        146             29.4

2000        257             51.5

So 2000 was the key year. I must point out that 2000 was the first year I began voting for Rice. But many must have voted for him in '98, not voted for him in '99, when the Ryan-Brett-Yount team appeared on the ballot and then resumed voting for him in 2000.

That was the key year. He never received fewer than 52.2 percent of the vote or finished lower than fifth again (2004, the year Molitor and The Eck went in). Between 2006 and 2008 he went 2d, 4th and 2d, and the year he dropped was when first ballot drop-deads Ripken and Gwynn showed up. So, once again, people marked those two and then stopped looking.

I almost hesitate to publish this, lest people come away thinking less of sportswriters than they already do. In this case I can neither be my brother's keeper nor his defender. Hey, what profession doesn't have its rogue element?

Still, Rice had to go from attracting the attention of just over half the electorate in 2000 to being the choice of three-quarters of the voters this year. In sheer numbers it meant going from getting 257 votes in 2000 to 406 in 2008. He just made it, too, squeaking home with seven more votes than he needed.

But he made it. Some might have reconsidered based on the idea that he was certifiably clean, a fact that looks more impressive today than in his day, when it as taken for granted that someone played without enhancements. Some may have been swayed by the outstanding statistical case put together and distributed by Dick Bresciani. There are many younger voters who were not burdened by any negative opinions concerning Rice's uneasy relationship with the media. I have always thought that issue was overblown, and I'm very happy we don't have to deal with it anymore.

The Jim Rice vote pattern is very interesting. We see that someone can start off slow and gain momentum. We see that some voters are very illogical people. And we see that 15 years is a very fair period of time.

At least, that's the way it seems to me.